My Daddy, Uncle Clay and Dinner Buckets

In the mid-1950s, my father and his brother, Uncle Clay, used to sit around in the yard and talk about the world, the old days, politics, and their work in the mines. Both had spent decades working underground, mining a seam of coal that ran from Southern Illinois through Western Kentucky, Southern Indiana, and Southern Ohio.

One of their mining themes had to do with dinner buckets, those aluminum containers that held their drinking water and a tray, that fit into the bucket like a double broiler, that held their lunches. They would look at me and say,  at various times in various contexts, “When your buddy empties his dinner bucket water, you empty yours too, don’t ask questions, just leave the mines. You find out what’s the matter when you get out of the mines.”

They said this with pride, and to them it was a matter of pride. And solidarity.

These were United Mine Workers of America people, for whom John L. Lewis was a small-d deity. Union people who believed strongly in the “rank and file”, not in Capitalism, not in union bosses (except for Lewis of course), not in company bosses. They believe in themselves, united.

My daddy and Uncle Clay were not Socialists. Coal miners are as close to being those U.S. “rugged individualists” that personify Capitalism as you can get. But they did realize that they were not alone; they had responsibilities, obligations, and allegiances to one another, even if they did not particularly like some of those “anothers”.

I wonder if this “us” attitude still exists in the workplace, or anywhere else in this country for that matter. For decades, our churches, priests/preachers, politicians, schools, and media have encouraged “me” generations. I wonder if this is good for folks like my daddy and Uncle Clay.

I’ve been a management professor and consultant for over 30 years and certainly know that companies/corporations are not inherently evil. Business owners, executives, and boards are not inherently evil. However, they all have a natural monetary, social, and psychological stake in their businesses that shape their perceptions and guide their behaviors. In addition, they have industry colleagues with whom to pool resources and perceptions. And they still think of employees as costs.

I also know that employees of these companies/corporations are not inherently evil. Unlike their management colleagues, however, they do not come to the workplace with shared perceptions; they do not have natural monetary, social, and psychological stakes in the businesses in which they find themselves. And they still think of employers as bosses.

I am not a defender of capital-u unions. Labor unions, even the UMWA, have over the years become business organizations themselves, with executives driving them. Members frequently find themselves having to deal with two sets of bosses—company managers and union managers—and two sets of political influences.

I do know, however, that a person like my daddy, one man, not well educated, standing by himself, no matter how good, strong, or God fearing he might be, cannot hold his ground against a billionaire business owner who thinks of him as a cost. Only by joining with his colleagues, whether he likes them or not, does he stand a chance of predictably being able to feed his kids, keep them in school, and stand up for his political convictions, whatever they may be.

So, I wonder how the “we” gets re-ignited as a concept in the workplace and in communities. I wonder how we erode the notion that working together is un-American.

But most of all, I wonder who I trust well enough that when she throws the water out of her dinner bucket, I will throw mine out too and follow her out of the mines?